Kristen Wiig may have shed a few tears when she left Saturday Night Live , but the comedian is smiling up a storm these days. And that has a lot to do with Strokes drummer Fabrizio Moretti. The actress is featured on the cover of August’s Marie Claire and remains mostly mum on her fairly new relationship, but does allow that the musician is making her one content woman at the moment. “I will say that I’m happier than I’ve ever been and I feel very lucky right now,” says Wiig, responding to the question of why with a pair of answers: “Where I am now. Who he is. Those are the two big ones.” The Oscar-nominated Bridesmaids star is doing quite well professionally, too. She has three projects in the works: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (opposite Ben Stiller). Imogene (opposite Darren Criss). The Comedian (opposite Robert De Niro). Still, she clearly has perspective on what matters in life, telling the magazine: “When you’re on your deathbed, you probably aren’t counting the movies you’ve made. You’re looking at the people who are around you and thinking about the people in your life, and you can’t lose how important that is because that’s ultimately where happiness comes from.”
Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the richest of them all? The answer might surprise you. In its annual list of the highest-paid actresses in Hollywood, Forbes has revealed that the new Snow White herself sits atop the rankings. Come on, Kristen Stewart, there’s a reason to smile! According to the magazine, Stewart has pulled in $12.5 million for each of the last two Twilight Saga films, the same amount as co-stars Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner . Combine that figure with her turn this summer in Snow White and the Huntsman and Stewart made $34.5 million between May 2011 and May 2012. Factoring in upfront pay, profit participation, residuals, endorsements and advertising work, here is a look at the top 10 highest-paid female stars in that time period: Kristen Stewart, $34.5 million Cameron Diaz. $34 million Sandra Bullock, $25 million Angelina Jolie, $20 million Charlize Theron, $18 million Julia Roberts, $16 million Sarah Jessica Parker, $15 million Meryl Streep, $12 million Kristen Wiig, $12 million Jennifer Aniston, $11 million
Confirming rumors that have been circulating for months, and which were punctuated by his performance of Lazy Sunday 2 on the Saturday Night Live season finale last month, Andy Samberg has confirmed that he’s exiting the iconic sketch show. “It’s an incredibly emotional and strange moment in my life,” Samberg told The New York Times yesterday in a telephone interview. “Obviously it’s not a huge shock, but I did officially decide not to come back.” Samberg joined SNL in 2005 and went on to become the master of the Digital Short. He can also do a mean impression of Nicholas Cage. Referring to this move as “one of the hardest decisions I’ve ever made,” the comedian will next be seen alongside Adam Sandler in this summer’s That My Boy . His depature follows that of Kristen Wiig, who was given an emotional send-off on that same season finale.
Sunday’s most-nominated films have the Wanted, ‘Jersey Shore’ star Deena and Big Time Rush divided. By Jocelyn Vena Jennifer Lawrence and Josh Hutcherson in “Hunger Games” Photo: Lionsgate While we all know where Justin Bieber stands on the issue of “Bridesmaids” versus “Hunger Games” (hint: He prefers laughing to crying), we felt it was important to do our due diligence and reach out to other celebrities to see which of the two most-nominated films might take home more prizes at Sunday’s 2012 MTV Movie Awards . Kendall Schmidt and Carlos Pena from Big Time Rush also went for “Bridesmaids” as the night’s big winner, with Pena telling MTV News he thinks he’s “in love” with Kristen Wiig — “a little bit.” Siva Kaneswaran from the Wanted was banking on “The Hunger Games,” and bandmate Jay McGuiness had a very good reason. “Me and Max [George] Googled Jennifer Lawrence. We were very happy with the results,” he laughed. Deena Cortese from “Jersey Shore” also seemed pretty sure that Jennifer Lawrence’s dystopian flick will beat Kristen Wiig’s female-driven comedy about the perils of weddings: “I think “Hunger Games” might take it.” The films will not only face off in the Movie of the Year category, but also in Best Female Performance, Best Cast and Breakthrough Performance. To find out which movie will take home more Golden Popcorn, check out the 2012 MTV Movie Awards this Sunday at 9 p.m. ET/PT. The show will be hosted by Russell Brand and feature performances from Fun. , the Black Keys, Martin Solveig and Wiz Khalifa . It all goes down live at the Gibson Amphitheatre in Universal City, California, this Sunday. Head over to MovieAwards.MTV.com to vote for your favorite flicks now! The 21st annual MTV Movie Awards air live this Sunday, June 3, at 9 p.m. ET. Related Videos Behind The Scenes At The 2012 MTV Movie Awards Related Photos 2012 MTV Movie Award Nominees
Kristen Wiig got a musical sendoff on the season finale of Saturday Night Live. The popular cast member is leaving the show after seven years, and in her final skit, guest host Mick Jagger played the principal at a high school graduation and brought up Wiig, in cap and gown, as “one particular student who is leaving this summer.” The symbolism? Not subtle. The emotions? Running high. Kristen Wiig Saturday Night Live Farewell She danced in turn with Jagger, cast members and executive producer Lorne Michaels to the tune of the Rolling Stones classic “She’s a Rainbow.” The ensemble then sang sang another Stones hit, “Ruby Tuesday,” with its line, “still I’m gonna miss you.” Wiig appeared to be holding back tears. Wiig’s departure, while widely expected – her hit film Bridesmaids was just the start of a promising movie career – is still a tough blow for the show. Her limitless range on SNL brought us attention-seeker Penelope, Kat (half of the musical duo Garth and Kat), the Target woman and other oddballs. Real-life notables she played include Bjork, Kathie Lee Gifford, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and most recently, Tanning Mom .
‘Bridesmaid’ star sheds tears as she waltzes with TV pals one last time. By Gil Kaufman Kristen Wiig on SNL’s Season Finale Photo: NBC There are many different ways to leave “Saturday Night Live.” Some cast members get dumped after a few episodes and are never heard from again and others have long, productive runs and graduate to movies. But most just kind of disappear and are replaced by someone younger, prettier, more versatile or just newer when the next season rolls around. Kristen Wiig was never a typical “SNL”er. The stand-out star of the show that has minted a galaxy of them has always had a little something extra and when it came time for her final curtain call you could tell. During Saturday night’s season finale, Wiig was given a rare chance to say goodbye to the show that helped make her a TV and movie star when she, literally, danced her last dance with the people who helped her achieve her dreams. In the episode hosted by Rolling Stones front man Mick Jagger, the “Bridesmaids” star appeared in a mock graduation sketch in which she got to toss aside her cap and gown and make the transition to her new life. With Jagger playing a school principal praising one of his favorite students in the night’s final sketch, the rock icon smarmily said, “I’d like to take a moment to say goodbye to one particular student who is leaving this summer to become a nun. Kristen?” Wiig, trying to hold back the waterworks, stood by Jagger as he joked, “You meant quite a lot to us over the past seven years. She got held back. So our music department got together and prepared a song to say goodbye. This one’s for you.” Wiig then tore off her cap and gown to reveal a miniskirt and top combo and did a series of Victorian slow dances and hand jives with her cast mates as Arcade Fire performed the Stones’ “She’s a Rainbow” and “Ruby Tuesday.” Andy Samberg almost caused a wardrobe malfunction when he picked Wiig up and spun her around after the actress had taken turns with pals Bill Hader, Seth Meyers, Kenan Thompson, Fred Armisen, Bobby Moynihan, Jenny Slate, and Jason Sudeikis. The biggest ovation came when she went cheek-to-cheek with show founder Lorne Michaels. On the line, “still I’m gonna miss you” from the Stones’ “Ruby Tuesday,” Wiig pointed to the crowd as old pals Amy Poehler and Rachel Dratch boogied one more time on the show with their friend. NBC has not confirmed that Wiig is leaving the show, but the last waltz seemed like a fitting end to a memorable run in which she created a host of iconic characters. From mischievous Gilly, to crude baby-armed crooner Dooneese Maharelle, enthusiastic Target Lady, and improvisational singer Kat, as well as great impression of Kris Jenner, Bj
Give Patricia Krentcil credit where due. The New Jersey woman, now known as Tanning Mom after her arrest for (allegedly) letting her six-year-old go tanning with her, knows how to take a joke. Kristen Wiig’s impersonation of her on Saturday Night Live’s Weekend Update news segment this weekend was “well done,” she told the New York Post . Tanning Mom conceded, “The whole thing was hysterical.” Tanning Mom Saturday Night Live Parody During the sketch, a charred-looking Wiig likened Patricia Krentcil to a Slim Jim, and later “Wile E. Coyote right after something’s blown up in his face.” The 44-year-old Krentcil, who pleaded not guilty to felony child endangerment charges last week, was not nearly amused after Snooki called her crazy .
The Avengers is less a movie than a novelization of itself, an oversized, self-aware picture designed mostly for effect: That of reliving the experience of a movie you’ve seen before and just can’t get enough of. The picture is broken down into narrative chunks that ultimately don’t tell much of a story – what you get instead is a series of mini-climaxes held together by banter between characters. The idea, maybe, is that people already love Captain America, Iron Man, the Hulk and Thor so much — like, so, so much — that all a filmmaker really needs to do is put them all into a big stock pot filled with elaborate set pieces and some knowing dialogue and he’s golden. And maybe, given the heightened-lowered expectations of movie audiences, that really is all he has to do: It’s possible to have looked forward to a movie all year, to enjoy watching it, and then to have completely forgotten about it the following week. The Avengers isn’t terrible. It has a welcoming, communal spirit, especially for a big-budget, early-summer picture. But its director, Joss Whedon — who also cowrote the script, with Zak Penn, based on the characters created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby — seems to have gotten lost in mythology on his way to the story. It’s odd that last year, the arrival (and popularity) of The Artist and Midnight in Paris elicited dozens of cranky essays — or at least Tweets — about how lame it was that these movies traded in “nostalgia,” a sentimental longing for an old-timey world of bowler hats and flapper dresses (or, at least, moviemaking with less green screen). But movies built around comic books never get the same treatment, even though they wouldn’t exist if not for a past kept in boxes under countless beds, a past that you get really mad at your mother for throwing out. We have to carry some of the past along with us. How else do you shape the future? But The Avengers isn’t so much a movie as a kind of G-8 summit for action figures who have finally been allowed out of their cellophane boxes. They do action stuff, then they talk a little, then they do more action stuff. It’s a movie that, for all its dazzle, has forgotten that the whole point of reading comic books is for story and character development. The Avengers certainly doesn’t lack for characters, most of which will be familiar even if you’ve never read a Marvel comic book in your life, provided you’ve been to the movies at least a couple of times in the past few years. As the picture opens, Samuel L. Jackson’s Nick Fury, the godfather of the military law-enforcement outfit known as S.H.I.E.L.D., is just about to put a shiny cube known as the Tesseract away for safe-keeping when out of the sky drops pissed-off alien Viking Loki (played by Tom Hiddleston, who has a fantastic anemic-schoolboy look). Loki possesses a mysterious staff that can steal the hearts of men, even superhuman ones, and he uses this dastardly magical doohickey to take a number of Nick Fury’s employees hostage, among them Jeremy Renner’s Clint Barton, AKA Hawkeye, a bow-and-arrow guy. He also takes possession of the Tesseract, which has the power to destroy worlds and to remove that pesky ring-around-the-collar — seriously, this rock can do anything. Nick needs to get the rock back, and fast, so he summons the most awesome assemblage of superhuman superheroes ever, in the form of Tony Stark, AKA Iron Man (Robert Downey Jr.), Steve Rogers, AKA Captain America (Chris Evans), Bruce Banner, AKA the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) and Natasha Romanoff, AKA Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson). Later, Loki’s linebacker-sized half-brother Thor (the casually appealing Chris Hemsworth, a collegiate, big galoot of a guy) joins the fray, as Hawkeye does once he’s freed from Loki’s spell. It’s not giving too much away to tell you that these guys do recover the Tesseract, because luckily, someone has had the foresight to build a reversible thingie into the thingie — smart thinking! And maybe, when it comes right down to it, The Avengers doesn’t need much in the way of plotting to deliver base-level blockbuster satisfaction: It moves forward, set piece by set piece, in a way that can easily fool you into thinking it’s exciting, or at least not boring. In one sequence, Iron Man and Thor — his mighty hammer looking looking comically, wonderfully tiny in his gigantic hand — duke it out in a forest; Captain America swoops in to intervene, and the three engage in a vaulting, clanging, technically souped-up version of rock-paper-scissors, each trying to outdo the others with his own personal superhero superpowers — they don’t yet realize that their powers complement each other more than they clash. Later, Thor breaks up more shenanigans among the group with a rebuke: “You people are so petty! And so tiny.” He’s got that right. The Avengers suffers from the thing that mars so many movies peopled with outsize characters: Everyone is jostling for our attention, and naturally, some are going to grab more than others. Ruffalo is characteristically understated as Bruce Banner, which makes his transformation into, as Stark puts it, “an enormous green rage monster” quietly satisfying. Renner’s Hawkeye is a little lost — it can’t be easy, being the bow-and-arrow guy. Similarly, even though Johansson’s sultry Natasha gets a smashing opening — she vanquishes a bunch of thugs even as she’s tied to a chair, a magnificent feat of bondage combat — she’s quickly relegated to the superhero back burner. And Downey’s Stark, strutting around in his off-hours in a Black Sabbath T-shirt, is amusing until his self-important wisecracks begin to wear ruts in the movie. One thing The Avengers doesn’t have going for it — which is hardly the movie’s fault — is that it can never be the sneak attack Jon Favreau’s first Iron Man movie was. That picture stands as the best in a wayward series of Avengers movies that include Kenneth Branagh’s crazy-Wagnerian Thor and Joe Johnston’s well-intentioned but wobbly Captain America: The First Avenger . Of all the characters here, Chris Evans’s Captain America best acquits himself, partly because Evans never looks as if he’s trying too hard and partly, maybe, because his character’s suit — an old-fashioned padded red-white-and-blue number, with matching helmet mask — is so old-school that you never lose sight of the superhuman human being inside it. Maybe that’s also why Gwyneth Paltrow, who appears in only a few scenes as Tony Stark’s main squeeze Pepper Potts, is such a blessed vision: She pads around Tony Stark’s space-age Manhattan headquarters in her bare feet, dressed in a white shirt and cutoff shorts, a sexy vision of down-to-earth braininess — she also happens to be coordinating the technology that makes Stark and his Stark Enterprises such a success. But maybe you don’t really need a Pepper Potts when you’ve got a crashing, galloping extended climax in which a portion of New York City is destroyed by massive flying metal beasties before the Avengers can restore order. Whedon does a pretty valiant job of orchestrating set pieces like these. And yet — is that what we really want from Whedon? In my book, Whedon will always be a genius for creating and shaping Buffy the Vampire Slayer — a show that addressed not just the major traumas of teenagerhood but of this goddamned thing we call life — and shepherding it through seven remarkably sustained seasons. The Avengers is far less intimate than Buffy — a show whose proportions reached majestic heights — ever was. And Whedon’s 2005 feature directing debut Serenity , based on his ill-fated but marvelous television series Firefly , offers the kind of satisfying, bare-bones storytelling that’s lacking in The Avengers . (I also think it’s time for Whedon to retire the idea of the hole in the sky that suddenly breaks open, unleashing horrors upon an unsuspecting world, a device that also features in the smug, tricky, meta-horror movie Cabin in the Woods , which Whedon cowrote and produced. He never met a portal he didn’t like.) The Avengers is at its best when Whedon takes the time to shape small moments between the characters, as when tight-ass Agent Phil Coulson (played by the likeably noodgy Clark Gregg) goes all stammering and tongue-tied in the presence of Captain America, his childhood idol. Coulson’s awkward hero worship is a gentle metaphor for The Avengers ’ whole reason for existence — these are characters people love, for understandable reasons. But the movie’s scale and size does little to serve those characters, and there’s something self-congratulatory about Whedon’s whole approach, as if he were making a movie only for people who are already in on the in-joke. Comic-book aficionados who have always loved the Avengers may very well love The Avengers ; those who wouldn’t know a Tesseract from a Rubik’s Cube may feel differently. That’s the thing about other people’s nostalgia: It’s always a bitch. Follow Stephanie Zacharek on Twitter . Follow Movieline on Twitter .
The annual pageant of youth, taste and class hardware bacchanal known as the MTV Movie Awards has announced its nominations for 2012, with this year’s most formidable blockbuster to date, The Hunger Games , doing battle against the most formidable blockbusters of last year’s calendar, including Bridesmaids, Breaking Dawn: Part I, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2, The Help , and others. And Drive loyalists rejoice! Your favorite head-shattering action-drama of 2011 has been honored with three nominations as well. Read on for the full list of contenders who will go at it in a fully-product placement-optimized Gibson Amphitheater on June 3. MOVIE OF THE YEAR (voting stays live throughout the 2012 Movie Awards ceremony) Bridesmaids The Hunger Games Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 The Help The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 BEST FEMALE PERFORMANCE Emma Stone – Crazy, Stupid, Love. Emma Watson – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 Jennifer Lawrence – The Hunger Games Kristen Wiig – Bridesmaids Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo BEST MALE PERFORMANCE Channing Tatum – The Vow Daniel Radcliffe – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 Joseph Gordon-Levitt – 50/50 Josh Hutcherson – The Hunger Games Ryan Gosling – Drive BREAKTHROUGH PERFORMANCE** Elle Fanning – Super 8 Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids Liam Hemsworth – The Hunger Games Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo Shailene Woodley – The Descendants BEST COMEDIC PERFORMANCE Jonah Hill – 21 Jump Street Kristen Wiig – Bridesmaids Melissa McCarthy – Bridesmaids Oliver Cooper – Project X Zach Galifianakis – The Hangover Part II BEST CAST* 21 Jump Street – Jonah Hill, Channing Tatum, Ice Cube, Dave Franco, Ellie Kemper, Brie Larson Bridesmaids – Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey, Ellie Kemper Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 – Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson, Rupert Grint, Tom Felton The Help – Emma Stone, Viola Davis, Octavia Spencer, Bryce Dallas Howard, Jessica Chastain The Hunger Games – Jennifer Lawrence, Josh Hutcherson, Liam Hemsworth, Elizabeth Banks, Woody Harrelson, Lenny Kravitz BEST ON-SCREEN TRANSFORMATION* Collin Farrell – Horrible Bosses Elizabeth Banks – The Hunger Games Johnny Depp – 21 Jump Street Michelle Williams – My Week with Marilyn Rooney Mara – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo BEST FIGHT Channing Tatum & Jonah Hill vs. Kid Gang – 21 Jump Street Daniel Radcliffe vs. Ralph Fiennes – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 Jennifer Lawrence & Josh Hutcherson vs. Alexander Ludwig – The Hunger Games Tom Cruise vs. Michael Nyqvist – Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol Tom Hardy vs. Joel Edgerton – Warrior BEST KISS Channing Tatum & Rachel McAdams – The Vow Jennifer Lawrence & Josh Hutcherson – The Hunger Games Robert Pattinson & Kristen Stewart – The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn – Part 1 Rupert Grint & Emma Watson – Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 2 Ryan Gosling & Emma Stone – Crazy, Stupid, Love. BEST GUT-WRENCHING PERFORMANCE* 21 Jump Street – Jonah Hill & Rob Riggle (Schmidt shoots Coach Walters in the d#@k) Bridesmaids – Kristen Wiig, Maya Rudolph, Rose Byrne, Melissa McCarthy, Wendi McLendon-Covey and Ellie Kemper (Food poisoning turns the girls’ dress fitting into a disaster) Drive – Ryan Gosling (Elevator beat-down) The Help – Bryce Dallas Howard (Minny gives Hilly a pie she won’t forget) Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol – Tom Cruise (Ethan Hunt scales to new heights) BEST ON-SCREEN DIRTBAG* Bryce Dallas Howard – The Help Collin Farrell – Horrible Bosses Jennifer Aniston – Horrible Bosses Jon Hamm – Bridesmaids Oliver Cooper – Project X BEST MUSIC* “The Devil is in the Details,” Chemical Brothers – Hanna (Interrogation scene) “Impossible,” Figurine – Like Crazy (Anna texts Jacob from across the pond) “Party Rock Anthem,” LMFAO – 21 Jump Street (House dance party) “Pursuit of Happiness,” Kid Cudi (Steve Aoki Remix) – Project X (The party erupts into chaos) “A Real Hero,” College w/Electric Youth – Drive (The Driver takes Irene and her son for a fun ride) *denotes new category **voted on by an Academy of Directors ###
While it will be a big loss for the show, we think all three can move on to strong careers. By John Mitchell Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis and Andy Samberg Photo: Getty Images The news that Kristen Wiig, Jason Sudeikis and Andy Samberg may leave “Saturday Night Live” at the end of the current season has fans wondering why their favorite stars are looking to jump and how they’ll fare once they’ve departed the safety of the sketch-comedy institution to pursue TV and movie stardom. Neither Sudeikis nor Samberg has commented on the rumors , but on Alec Baldwin’s podcast Monday, Wiig did address the departure talk, though she neither confirmed nor denied the chatter. “I don’t know,” Wiig told Baldwin when asked if her tenure as one of the most beloved “SNL” performers was nearly up. “Everyone has to leave … and I will say that when I do leave, it’s not because I’m sick of it and not because I see something better or anything like that. It’s just that it’s time. When I do leave, it will be the hardest thing.” While some “SNL” performers have had shaky post-show careers, plenty have had great success, and there’s no reason to think Wiig, Samberg and Sudeikis won’t do the same. All three have plenty of projects lined up and a history of behind-the-scenes work that makes us think they’ll be just fine. Let’s take a look at what these three have cooking: Kristen Wiig Wiig is arguably the biggest star of the current “SNL” cast. She’s been on the show for nearly seven years and has received three Outstanding Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series Emmy nominations for her performance on the show. Her characters Gilly and the Target Lady and her impersonations of Kathie Lee Gifford, Nancy Pelosi and Taylor Swift are among the show’s most well-known. If she does leave, it will be a major loss for the show, but like Wiig told frequent “SNL” host Baldwin, “Everyone has to leave.” Like many successful comediennes before her, Wiig honed her comic talents as a performer and writer with the Groundlings comedy troupe. The latter talent served her particularly well last year, earning her an Oscar nomination for co-writing the screenplay to her hit film “Bridesmaids,” which grossed nearly $170 million in the US. Perhaps in preparation for her inevitable “SNL” departure, she’s recently been taking on dramatic parts — as in the just released “Friends With Kids” and the upcoming “Freezing People Is Easy” — and even her planned laughers skew away from the screwball comedy where she made her name, including “Imogene,” about a playwright who stages a suicide to win back her ex but ends up in the custody of her gambling-addict mother, and “The Comedian,” which will be directed by Sean Penn and co-star Robert De Niro. Prediction : Pretty, smart and an undeniable double threat, Wiig will be just fine. She’s got a long list of promising projects in the works, indicating that while she’s already a household name, she’s probably set for even bigger things. Jason Sudeikis Like Wiig, Sudeikis is currently enjoying a surge of interest from the film community. While his recent “Good Old Fashioned Orgy” was a miss, Sudeikis found modest box-office success with the comedy “Hall Pass” and scored an even bigger smash last summer with “Horrible Bosses,” which was a $117 million-grossing hit in the U.S. and pulled in another $92 million overseas. Sudeikis has found himself in some pretty ideal company if he’s looking to launch a long-term career in big-screen comedies. He already has “The Campaign,” co-starring Will Ferrell and Zach Galifianakis, in the can, as well as a still-untitled short-film compilation (think “Paris, je t’aime”) that co-stars, in some fashion, everyone from Kate Winslet and Hugh Jackman to Elizabeth Banks and Emma Stone. The actor is also carving out quite a TV niche, appearing regularly on HBO’s acclaimed “Eastbound & Down” and as a voice on the animated “Cleveland Show.” Prediction : Sudeikis’ reputation for being easy to work with should not be underestimated here. Comedians are notoriously touchy subjects, so it’s not surprising that his easygoing nature has quickly made him a go-to for directors looking for a handsome funny guy. And let’s face it: There will always be a role for the handsome funny guy. But if he wants to prove himself to be more than a one-trick pony, he needs to take on a dramatic role in the near future. Might we suggest an ensemble pic from a director like Paul Thomas Anderson, Steven Soderbergh or David O. Russell? That way, if he’s good, critics will call him a “scene stealer,” but if he’s not great, he would blend into the background. Andy Samberg Samberg’s departure is perhaps the biggest risk of the three “SNL” castmembers reportedly looking to fly the coop. Unlike Wiig and Sudeikis, he has not been the lead or major featured player in a successful film. Indeed, he’s been a supporting player in a number of misfires and is a hard sell as a leading man. He’s going to make a go of it with the upcoming Sundance Film Fest crowd pleaser “Celeste and Jesse Forever,” and there seems to be a lot of interest in his upcoming summer comedy with Adam Sandler, “That’s My Boy.” But Samberg’s problem may lie in the very thing that’s made him famous: his goofball shtick. The Digital Shorts he brought to “SNL” with his Lonely Island crew have been insanely popular, but Samberg has so far been at his best in small doses. To make a strange analogy, there’s a reason Leslie Knope is the lead character on “Parks and Recreation” instead of Ron Swanson or Tom Haverford. It’s because wild and crazy works for supporting characters, but leads have to be able convey far more depth and connect with audiences. Samberg has yet to prove he can do that. Prediction : He may have a rough go of things until he finds his footing, but if he’s able to bring the kind of creativity and innovation to his post-“SNL” career as he did to his time on the show, he’ll figure things out. He really needs to dial it back and prove he can be more than the zany sidekick. Which “SNL” star do you think will have the most success after leaving the show? Let us know in the comments below!
